Archive for
July, 2014

Dark Discoveries #27 – I have always been a fan of this magazine and have been trying to get in it for quite a while now. At long last I have finally succeeded. “Communication Breakdown” was originally written for an anthology which never came to pass. [There’s a lesson in there about writing for theme anthologies, or at least keeping your story not so specific to the anthology that you can’t re-sell it later. I have a drawer with a couple other stories written for theme anthologies which are now destined for a collection.] Anyway, this story is a foray into horror, inspired by an incident my wife related to me (she once received these mysterious texts meant for someone else … and she couldn’t help but write back).

Sword and Mythos (Innsmouth Free Press) – “Fifteen writers, drawing inspiration from the pulp sub-genres of sword and sorcery and the Cthulhu Mythos, seed stories of adventure, of darkness, of magic and monstrosities.” This features one of my Sword and Soul stories, “The Iron Hut.” The story starts one of my recurring characters, Dinga Cisse, last seen in the Griots anthology story “The Lost Son.” These stories take place in the same world as “Warrior of the Sunrise” of The New Hero vol. 1 anthology. “The Iron Hut” is a bit of a Robert E. Howard meets H.P. Lovecraft tale.

Help Fund My Robot Army – Has my story “I Used to Love H.E.R.” and is yet another story that takes place in my “Pimp My Airship” steampunk universe. Here’s the premise of the anthology: “HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY!!! is an anthology of science fiction/fantasy stories told in the form of fictional crowdfunding project pitches, using the components (and restrictions) of the format to tell the story. This includes but is not limited to: Project Goals, Rewards, User Comments, Project Updates, FAQs, and more. The idea is to replicate the feel of reading a crowdfunding pitch, so that even though the projects may be preposterous in the real world, they will feel like authentic crowdfunding projects as much as possible.” Now, imagine trying to run a Kickstarter in a steampunk world, to fund the building of a girlfriend’s robot body, and you have my story.